Thursday’s Buzz: 2.7.13

What is the future of Yale's online education? Photo by Open Yale Courses.

THE NEWS

A new study of Israeli and Palestinian schoolbooks led by Yale School of Medicine psychiatrist Bruce Wexler has come under fire from the Israeli government. Produced by a team of Israeli and Palestinian researchers who surveyed over 3,100 excerpts from 168 Israeli and Palestinian textbooks, the study, titled “Victims of Our Own Narratives?”, found that the books generally put a nationalistic spin on historical events and frequently depict the other nation as the enemy. But the study also reported that “dehumanizing and demonizing” depictions of Israelis and Palestinians were rare in both peoples’ textbooks, representing a break from other past analyses. In a statement released Jan. 30, the Israeli Ministry of Education accused the report of extreme bias.

Robert Eugene Evenson, an economics professor who had been with the University for three decades, died in New Haven of Alzheimer’s disease on Feb. 2. He was 78. A key figure in the field of agricultural science, Evenson directed the Economic Growth Center and International Development Economics Program and researched farm productivity in developing countries, pioneering new methods of surveying and analyzing agricultural households.

In the past, Yale has involved itself in ambitious, though carefully planned, expansions of its online presence, notably demonstrated in the Open Yale Courses project. But the University is still one of the only Ivy League schools not yet affiliated with the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) movement. What is the future of Yale’s online education? Staff reporter Jane Darby Menton investigates.